The Heartbreak of Adoption
A young girl’s body is tucked in tight, sound asleep, cozy in a nice warm bed. Her body lies helpless and dreams begin to take control of her blank mind. A reoccurring nightmare starts to play, bringing out fright, slowly disturbing the helpless body. A faceless woman appears, and the young girl’s body starts to tighten and shake. She jolts awake and cries out for help echoing throughout a quiet house. Her body lies clenched tight, she is wide awake, scared in a cold bed.
Grace Small, 42, was born in the Philippines and spent her childhood growing up and sleeping on the streets, eating out of trash cans and begging for money. She has no memory of who her birth parents, nowhere to call home and no one to call family.
Grace was adopted when she was 15 years old and was living anything but the American dream. She suffered from the feeling of rejection and loneliness, and it showed through her anger and resentment towards her new families.
The Rennell’s were Grace’s first family she lived with in America. At last she thought she was going to have a forever family and a home, but she was wrong. The Rennell’s welcomed her with open arms into a house of fighting and depression. Grace said doesn’t like fighting and she became very unhappy living with them and spent most of time sitting alone in her bedroom.
While with the Rennels, Grace began having a reoccurring nightmare bringing back old memories from her childhood. In her nightmare she saw a faceless woman with a body. Grace said “I think it is a way of my mind trying to remember who her mother was.” She also said her body would tighten and shake until she jolted herself awake crying out for help.
Grace lived with the Rennell family for a less than a year until they decided not to adopt her. She was placed back into a foster home her feeling of rejection grew worse, she did not trust anyone making her adjustment to America even more difficult.
While living in the foster home she only a few weeks until she was going to be deported back to the Philippines and thrown back onto the streets, Grace needed to find somewhere to call home and quick.
Letha and John Small, Grace’s potential adoptive parents were asked if they would adopt Grace. The Smalls only had two days to make a life changing decision. Letha and John said “we had to agree to take her and keep her until she was an adult.” They went home that night and called their two children, Mike and Angie into the living room for a family discussion. Letha said “I can remember the day in the living room, like it was yesterday.” “Mike and Angie sat on their plaid couch with big wooden arm rests, and John and I sat in chairs in front of them.” She asked them how they would feel and what their thoughts would be about adopting Grace. She said she told them point blank “if you say no, we will not do it, no arguing about it.”
With the Mikes and Angie’s approval the Small family agreed they wanted Grace to be a part of their family.
The Smalls knew there were going to be struggles adjusting Grace to the American lifestyle but they were ready to take on the challenges.
Never meeting each other or even seeing a picture, in February 1987, Graced held a single bag with all her belongings inside and stepped into the Smalls’ house for the first time.
John said “when Grace walked into the door she was very polite and poised, she looked like a dog watching television.” John and Letha said Grace was very open and friendly at first. But as the honeymoon stage wore off Grace started to withdraw herself from the family and became very angry and spent a lot of time alone in her room.
Grace was not only lonely, she was angry.
“Grace would often times become very angry, explode, and become out of control,” said Graces mother. Grace does not know what triggered her to become so angry but when she became angry she said “I would run into my room and start breaking everything, throwing things against the wall.” She would not speak to anyone nor tell anyone what was wrong. Letha said “I would antagonize her until she blew up to figure out why she was so mad.” When Grace exploded with anger she said she began to shake and cry.
Her mother said, “Grace would curl up in the fetal position and began to cry and sob for hours, it was a cry I had never heard before. It was a deep cry that came from the gut of fear and sadness. It was a cry of a mother who had just lost her child; it was that type of cry.” Both Letha and Grace said they do not know what set Grace off. “It was definitely something else buried deep inside her” said Letha.
The abuse received from a man she did not know haunted Grace for years.
As a child, Grace faintly remembers living in a house with a woman which she does not know if it was her mom or not. Grace said “every night that woman would go to work in a club and bring home multiple men and leave them there at the house where she would expect me to cook and clean for them.” One man who Grace did not know began to abuse her for wanting to go watch a movie with the neighborhood kids.
The first time he punished her, she said “He put me into a rice sack and tied me up and hung me from the ceiling for a day.” The next day, the same man made her sit on the front porch next to a snake so she would not be able to leave the house.
It was the third time he abused her that has left a tear in her gut. “He tied a rope around my stomach and made me walk into the river until I drown.”
The memory of this abuse was what made Grace lose control when the Small family took a trip to the ocean.
The family vacationed near Point Mugu Naval Base in California where they took a trip to the ocean. “All the kids were playing in the sand, burying each other, having a good time” said Letha. Grace said she was fine until they were getting ready to leave; this is when she ran into the camper and began to scream and cry. “I was banging my head against the window and scratching my face with my nails” said Grace. Letha said it took Angie and John, Grace’s sister and father to hold her down until she calmed down.
It took years for Grace to fully adjust to the American lifestyle, but she slowly did. “As time went on Grace started bonding with the family more and more” said Letha. “I still don’t like fighting though, when my brothers and sisters fight I walk out of the house.”
